Eruptionof Long Lake and Mud Lake, in Vermont. 49 
ered ; while various tracts of meadow, in all about one hun- 
dred acres, were permanently ruined. 
Masses of wood were deposited, in greater or less frequen- 
cy, along the banks of the gulley, as well as in much larger 
heaps in those places where the progress of the torrent was 
momentarily suspended. Some of the men who witnessed it, 
told me that tens of thousands of cords, a quantity whi 
could not be calculated, were thus left in Barton, besides a 
vast amount floated further down. Near the church in Bar- 
ton, a field of twenty acres was covered with deposited timber 
to the height of twenty feet. Inseveral places, where the tor- 
rent was powerfully obstructed and suddenly narrowed, (as I 
was informed by two of the inhabitants,) the timber was piled 
up by the force of the stream, to the height of 60 or 80 feet. 
ast quantities of it were sunk under the sand... That which 
Jay upon the surface was burned as fast as it dried, and they 
had been burning it continually to clear the land; yet many 
cette’ 
of the lake. The hard tough mud in the bottom of Mud 
' Lake, was all forced out and carried away, and was seen scat 
tered in smaller and larger masses—some, artnet of hay- 
_ cocks—for a great distance along the progress torrent, 
_ Several of the workmen informed me that when the northern 
barrier of Long Lake gave way, and while the waters rushed 
down the declivity into Mud Lake, the convulsion shook the 
earth like a mighty ea lake ; and that the noise was 
louder than the loudest thunder, and was heard for many 
miles around. One of them, whose house was more the 
five miles from the spot, told me that the noise there was so 
loud that the cattle came running home, with the most obvi- 
ous marks of terror and alarm ; and that his family supposed, 
mntil his return, that there had I mend rthq " 
VOL. I.—No. 1. 7 
a 
